


the walls we build around us

by ConiumMaculatum



Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid
Genre: Cheating, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Gary Goldstein is a Soft Boy TM, Infidelity, Light Angst, Linda is way less awful when she's alone with Gary, fyi this fic is rife with my personal headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25594306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConiumMaculatum/pseuds/ConiumMaculatum
Summary: Gary and Linda go for a late night drive.
Relationships: Gary Goldstein/Linda Monroe, Gerald Monroe/Linda Monroe
Kudos: 23





	the walls we build around us

**Author's Note:**

> I've lost control of my life with this ship. Hope you enjoy. This could turn into a multichaptered thing if people like it and I have the motivation, so there may be updates in the future.

Linda has been crying for thirty minutes when she finally calls him. Gerald can't see her like this. She'll never allow him to know the parts of her that aren't sharp and cool and biting. But she needs _someone_ and, as she sits in her boys' playroom sobbing into one of River's stuffed animals, there's only one person she can make herself call. She hovers her finger over the call button for a few seconds before saying "fuck it" and tapping the button before she can change her mind. 

"Linda? Is everything okay?" she hears after two rings, and the speed of his answer and the grogginess of his voice just makes her cry even harder. 

"I woke you up," she manages in a shaky whisper as she tries not to let Gerald hear her talking. She doesn't bother trying to apologize.

"Do you want me to pick you up?"

Linda's heart aches at how unconditionally he cares for her. She nods at first, the thick lump in her throat keeping her from speaking. Of course he can't see her, but he seems to take some answer from her silence because the next thing he says is "I'll be right over."

Ten minutes later, Linda's phone is buzzing and she's on her way out the door, stepping into her snow boots and pulling a coat on over her leggings and oversized shirt as she goes. She practically runs for the sedan idling at the end of her driveway and as soon as her ass hits the leather seat Gary's hand finds hers and she can breathe again. 

"Hey, Lin," he says softly as he pulls away from her house. Not ready to look at him yet, Linda leans over and lays her head on his wool-clad shoulder as tears continue to roll down her cheeks. 

"Thank you," she says hoarsely, looking out the windshield at the falling snow. Gary squeezes her hand. 

"Any time," he says, like it's nothing. But it's not nothing to her. With anyone else, this devotion would make the wheels in Linda's head start to turn. She'd be thinking about how to use it to her advantage, or what buttons she could press to humiliate him and give herself a little thrill. Not with Gary. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks, drawing her from her thoughts as he turns his head to drop a kiss to the top of hers. 

"Later," she says. "Just drive." The tears are starting to slow by now, but she's trying desperately to push away the cold, empty feeling that's replacing them. Here, in the passenger seat of Gary's car, she almost thinks she could push that feeling away for good. His hand in hers and his shoulder under her cheek are so warm, and she can't help but wish her last name was Goldstein instead of Monroe. 

He drives them all over Hatchetfield and she sits there, breathing in the sandalwood scent of him with her head on his shoulder and her fingers laced through his long after the center console digging in to her hip becomes uncomfortable. When the tears have finally subsided entirely, Linda finally opens her mouth. 

"It's stupid, really," she begins, and Gary makes a little noise that suggests he wants to validate her feelings but is too polite to interject. Instead, he brings her hand to his lips and presses a kiss to the back of it and then her knuckles. The show of affection makes her breath catch in her throat, but she presses on. 

"The boys were being little demons all day long and Gerald was no help at all, and–” She cuts off, choking on the emotions that she'd thought she'd managed to suppress by now. “I'm just so tired, Gary. I'm tired of being this person and I'm tired of being lonely. I thought that tearing people down all the time would keep me from getting hurt, because if they hate me already they won't bother getting to know me. But where has that gotten me? I'm married to a man who doesn't know enough about me to love me, I have no friends, and the only time I'm ever even close to happy is when I'm with you." By the time she finishes speaking, Gary has parked them in the deserted parking lot of the currently closed grocery store and pressed a handkerchief into her free hand. 

As she wipes at her nose, she picks her head up from his shoulder and actually takes a good look at him. His hair is sticking up at odd angles and he's wearing pajamas under his coat and he's got the scarf she gave him for Christmas the year they met wrapped haphazardly around his neck and her heart skips a beat. She'd known that she'd woken him up, but this was evidence that Gary had leapt out of bed at three in the morning to comfort her. The thought has her reeling. All she can think to do is lean over their joined hands and pull him in to an earnest kiss. 

"I love you," he says against her mouth, and it's almost more than she can take. 

"I know, darling," she tells him, because how could she not know? He treats her with such tenderness, even after two children that he hardly ever gets to see and years of going behind Gerald's back. 

If he's disappointed that she didn't declare her love for him, he doesn't show it. He kisses her again. 

"Do you want to go home with me?" he asks. She nods. Gerald probably won't even notice she's gone. 

When they get to Gary's house, they shuck their winter wear at the door and head for the bedroom. Linda's leggings hit the floor soon after, but she leaves the shirt—which she now realizes is Gary's ratty Harvard Law tee shirt—and climbs into Gary's bed without a second thought. Gary follows, stripping to his boxers as he does, and they curl against one another in a tangle of limbs. Linda presses her face into Gary's chest and he holds her tight, rubbing her back in slow circles through the soft tee shirt. 

"I've been looking for this shirt," he says, amusement evident in his voice. 

"Well you can't have it back," Linda mumbles against Gary's skin. 

He laughs. "It looks better on you anyway."

"You're goddamn right, it does," she tells him with groggy certainty. All that crying has cancelled out her insomnia, and now the coziness of Gary's bed and his comfortable embrace is starting to drag her into unconsciousness. "Thank you for coming to get me," she adds, pressing a kiss to Gary's chest. 

"I'll always come when you call."


End file.
